Shop Talk

Funny stories in wireless

Did an ESN change for a prepaid customer. Due to my system being down, I called it in. Imagine my surprise when I reviewed the account and see that the PREPAID phone was approved for an upgrade and had a 1 year copmmitment and $18 upgrade fee applied! Especially since we no longer sell TDMA equipment, and this was a TDMA Prepaid account, as was the replacement phone.

Customer walks into my store yesterday. Bought a lg-vx4400 off us about 9 months ago. Phone won't hold a charge. No worries I can send it out to LG for repairs and issue her a loaner.

So I pop the battery off and hand it to her. She asks why I am giving her a part of the phone. I explained to her that batteries are only warrantied for 90 days. If the battery is bad she needs to buy a new one.. though the charging issue may be in the phone and that can be fixed.

She got pissed at me! She kept me busy for 30 minutes screaming saying those little gold charge connectors on the back of the battery were A PART OF THE PHONE AND SHOULD BE UNDER WARRANTY. This went on...(continues)

On the phone with an ATT rep doin an activation. He asks me what rate plan does the customer want

me "he wanted the national 59.99, plus a 9.99 extra connection on a two year"

he "Where did this trend come from? just say that you want a 59.99 sharable and we automatically know what to do with the rest"

me "uh thanks for bein sassy.....how do you know if its 19.99 or 9.99? it matters if its a one or two year"

he "silence"

later....

he "Ok, so we're setting up your customer with the 59.99 sharable plus 9.99 for the extra connection with the 7.99 Mmode on both phones free for the first month blah blah blah ...is there anything else?"

me "thats it"

he "ok sorry, i forgot....how long of a contract does the customer want?"...(continues)

I work in a mall kiosk. We are in Wisconsin, so we have some Packer and Badger decorations in our display cases, including miniature helmets. One day last week a woman came in to look at phones, then looked in the case next to the phones, saw the Badger helmet, and GASP "Is THAT a phone? Wow, how much is it with a contract?"!!!! ROTLMAO

I had a very old woman come into Cingular with a pamphlet that I believe that she got from church saying that some phone companys are giving money to fund abortions, and if we were one of those companys she wanted to cancel service...so odd.

I had another old man come in and say that he lost his prepaid phone and wanted a new one, I proceeded to tell him the prices on our new prepaid phones and he demanded a new one for FREE because he was a customer awhile ago.

How about a whole family coming in, and the mother giving me her sons X427 with a broken off antenna demanding that i replace it uder the warranty (anyone in their right mind knows that physical damage isn't covered) she proceeded to tell me that the antenna fell off on its own...(continues)

phonepimp3376 said:Customer: This is the 6th phone I've bought at full price in 13 months. I keep losing them.

Me: Perhaps you would like to consider our handset insurance. That would limit your replacement cost to only $50.

Customer: What? And spend an extra $3.99 a month? ARE YOU NUTS?

I hear that all the frickin' time. We had a bad series of severe storms a week or so ago, and one morning I saw not one but two people with rain-ruined phones buy new units at full price & then refuse to get insurance.

yesterday i had a guy whose wife lost the phone in on week, he came in bitching that he was under the impression that we (the agent) repalced the phone for free and that he thought he wouldn't need to pay a deductible..

also had someone w a prepaid phone that said it indicated "invalid battery' and that we should exchange it..we said to bring it in and well look at it,,sure enough it was wet...i asked her where the sticker was , she said "the little red one??>" DO"H...i peeled it off...!!

tequilasundae said:yesterday i had a guy whose wife lost the phone in on week, he came in bitching that he was under the impression that we (the agent) repalced the phone for free and that he thought he wouldn't need to pay a deductible..

also had someone w a prepaid phone that said it indicated "invalid battery' and that we should exchange it..we said to bring it in and well look at it,,sure enough it was wet...i asked her where the sticker was , she said "the little red one??>" DO"H...i peeled it off...!!

Way back when I worked for Radio Crack, we got those losers all the time. Our single biggest problem was the lazy bastards at the Sprint Store telling customers that we'd replace their defective phon...(continues)

There seem to be several funny stories about customers wanting replacements. Here are some of my favorites:

This week a man calls in saying he needs a replacement phone because his pet cheetah ate his. The funny part was watching the CSR who got the call trying to keep a straight face as she tried to determine if this would be classified as lost or water damage or breakage. She finally asked me for advice so it was lost.

Every day, customers call to file a claim on a phone that was damaged or lost before they had insurance. For some reason, they don't understand that until you're paying for a service you don't have the benefits of that service.

My favorite story of all time was the woman calling for her husband, who had droppe...(continues)

I do sales & service in a Sprint retail store so I hear anything and EVERYthing as we all do in this business. A month or so ago a lady walks up to my desk and politely informs that her phone wasn't working anymore. I take a look at the phone and it's got that mildewy look that just screams water damage. I do the usual and pop the battery off to look at the moisture indicator, but I don't even have to do that because water is just literally dripping onto my hand. I inform her that her phone is dead because of water damage and she is adamant that it's NEVER been wet. I'm like ma'am, it's dripping onto my hand right now (I show her my hand and her still dripping phone). She's like, "oh, well it's still under warranty right?"

we had a running list in my old store of the Nokia bastardizations. my favorites included Nautica, Nikiode, Nokeeter (y'all sell them nokeeter phones?), Norka... you're right the list is endless. and god forbid someone see our Kyocera display...

I'm working at Telus (Canadian wirelless carrier ), I was at customer service for about 2 years and now working in Data network assistance center... I have a couple of good ones throughout my years of service... I'll post a couple of them... My favorite all time Three inch errors ( user error... hahaha this is how we call it here ). Mr.Smith calls me and saying that he cannot receive calls...

Mr.Smith : Everytime I receive a call, it hangs up and goes to the voice mail and my phone powers off...

Not only phones but the service providers. My store is Clearly marked with huge neon lights saying who we are but needless to say everyday i hearAre you SCRINTZ thats right not sprint but SCRINTzVoice Scream US Cingular= my personal favorite across between Us cellular and Cingularand VER-A-ZON I really think a if a customer isn't smart enough to pronounce it We should let them out of contract under the dumb ass clause.

This is a great one i figured i share with everyone. This didn't happen to me but another store in my company shot me a message after it happened. A lady was interested in the LG VX6000 camera phone and after looking at it asked "where do you put the film in at?" the person helping her explained how it is a digital camera and store the photo's in the phone Her Response " So do i drop the whole phone off at walgreens to have them developed.

Our customer came in to have his insurance replacement activated. When asked what was wrong with his original, he said it was water damaged. When the sales rep asked how that happened, the customer told him, "I threw it in the pool to see if it would float."

Any wagers on whether or not the phone floated, folks? That's kinda what I thought, too....

when we first launched in the area here, we started with an x class 0.00 deposit in order to get new customers...(bad idea,meant any idiot over 18 could get a phone w no credit)Wher word of that spread through some of our town's lower income areas, we were constantly swamped for about 3 months solid.. this happened in month 2...a guy came in with his mama and picked out a phone for his missus,which his mom shot down and said she wouldn't like..so he bought a different one and left...next day they were back, she didn't' like the phone she wanted the first one he chose..!@#$%..1 day later both back again,,,i was thinking what now!?!?! "the mother#$%^& don't work...i ask whats wrong(this after he flung it on the counter)"it won't charge up"> ...(continues)

i have a great story..a lady comes into my store and wants to upgrade her phone, sure thats fine have a seat...i look up her account but she is not eligible..well i need a replacement my phone is broke and she dosen't have insurance...well you can go to the corporate store on jambree and see if they can help you...wrote down the directions for her and even gave her map quest...she called 30 min later (it only takes 5 minutes to get there) i am lost i cant find it...gave her directions again...she calls an hour later the security guard wont let me in...where are you???? at the corparate office off of sand canyon....literally she was at the corporate office...for verizon..i told her come back to my store and i will give you a loner ...(continues)

(My stores are in the Dayton Ohio area)Here is a story. Happened yesterday. A family (husband wife two kids) came in the store to activate a phone and I am doing the credit check and the screen keeps saying invalid zip code no such address. So I look up at the dad and say i can't under stand why this won't go through are you right on the edge of Dayton. Answer: "NAW were married"

i thought this was hilarious I work for att cc i a customer calls me irate speaking 100words a minute saying how she always has to call about her device problems when i finally get her to come down she explains her phone used to emergency calls only in certain areas, unfurtonately that is a common problem with gsm networks, I tried to explain that to the customer but she very quickly said that was not the problem the problem was her phone was now able to make and receive calls in that area I actually had a customer call complain because we are constantly upgrading aur gsm network and improved her coverage area.

javier2100 said:i thought this was hilarious I work for att cc i a customer calls me irate speaking 100words a minute saying how she always has to call about her device problems when i finally get her to come down she explains her phone used to emergency calls only in certain areas, unfurtonately that is a common problem with gsm networks, I tried to explain that to the customer but she very quickly said that was not the problem the problem was her phone was now able to make and receive calls in that area I actually had a customer call complain because we are constantly upgrading aur gsm network and improved her coverage area.

During this whole X-0.00 credit launch (anyone over 18 with ID got approved). The worst of the worst came out of the wood work. On our Displays we have Display phones (fake,nothing real about them,) and people were stealing them like crazy. we would go through 10 a day. Don't know why people would want to steal a toy phone but they did. Well the funny part is when a man and his family come in (barley could speak any english) wanting to activate a family plan. They said they had there own phones. And guess what they pulled out about 4 of our display phones. And then they wanted to agrue with us about it. It all worked out in the end once we ran the credit it came back as a invalid Social security number. and they ran out right away. But still...(continues)

i had a customer call right now about how she cant understand how she got a prorated bill for $589.00 first bill..i asked her did you go over minutes????no i never go over my minutes...i asked her to fax me the bill so i could look at it. to my suprise the fax machine spit out 57 pages of all her usage...i have no idea how people get a bill like that and then say they didn't go over minutes...i called her back and she still disputes..i gave her customer cares number...beware verizion customer care reps..

Don't be so quick to blame it on the store reps. I can't tell you how many times I've discussed proration with potential customers & immediately they get the MEGO (My Eyes Glaze Over) Look. Then, I break out a calculator & pencil & work it out for them on paper. I don't think it helps much.

some customer just don't want to understand. if it comes down to them doing something that's going to cost them some more money they tune it out. this way when they call they can say "they didn't tell me that" i note everytime i tell them about something so that they can't get the ignorance credit.

we always figure out how many prorated minutes a customer has for the first partial bill cycle, and make the customer initial by that number saying he understands the proration. then when they come back complaining, we can say "hey, you initialed it!"

last year i got a call from a customer that wanted me to ship them a phone via usps. i was like i'm sorry but the only way we ship phones is fedex. she was like: well they did ship the phones to us by fedex but i live in kinda a bad neighborhood and what happened was the fedex delivery guy got robbed and fedex won't send deliveries here anymore." i was trying not to laugh. so i called fedex to see what was going on and they verified that they wouldn't let anymore deliveries go to that area because their driver got robbed. i had to tell the lady that she just had to go to the store if she wanted to get a phone because fedex was too shook to go back to her home. she sounded so...(continues)

I work at a Sprint Exclusive dealer store here in California. Our store is right in the middle of a womens shopping center.(8 womens clothing stores, 5 salons, 1 nail salon, 1 beauty supply, and a bank. I love working here! Needless to say we get some interesting pics in these returned phones. If any of you have little sisters or teenage daughters, do not let them have a camera phone!

A lady wanted to know why her LCD was looking "like a computer screen". I asked how long it was like that. She said since the last time she gave it a bath. She said to give it a bath she filled her bathroom sink with hot soapy water and soaked the phone. It had already survived one bath. They were from Arkansas. Her friend Mabel told her she could bathe the phone. I was thinking, Mabel should buy you a new phone, and may be we need to call her. But you know we can't say that to customers.